“Of course we all know this country is the most corrupt in the world,” said the guy, Larry. “And LBJ is a warmonger.”
Chip said. “Shit, I’d go live in a truck in the Yucatán before I’d go in the army. But look on the bright side. This is April fifteenth. Twenty years ago on this day, Jackie Robinson played his first game in the major leagues.”
“Did you hear Martin Luther King on campus yesterday?” Larry asked. “He said Vietnam and racism are all about the same thing.”
“I heard it on the radio,” said Jimmy.
Ann hadn’t heard it. She had spent the evening on a typing job. Chip had a class he couldn’t miss, but he said he knew the “I Have a Dream” speech by heart. He kept talking, his flamboyant mustache twitching with every word. He covered LBJ’s myriad abuses of power, the virtues of passive resistance. Wedged uncomfortably between the two guys, Ann felt the rough presence of the male sex—their breath and loud voices—and regarded the pregnant woman rocking in the bucket seat. Jimmy and Katie were chatting, but Ann couldn’t hear what they said. She was squeezed in so tightly that her elbows met. Her purse ground into her lap.
“I went to the protest at the napalm factory in Redwood City last spring,” Larry said.
“I was there too!” Chip said.
“Man, that was awful. All those pictures of burned children.”
“If you don’t mind,” Katie said from the front.
“She hates to hear about that,” Larry said.
Since traffic was heavy, Jimmy parked in a lot far from where the march began, and it was on the move by the time they reached Market Street. They soon lost sight of the expectant couple, who had thanked Jimmy profusely and assured him they would find another ride home.
Chip was muttering as they walked along. “This would be better if we all started out stoned, but as they say, there’s a time and a place.”
“You might just end up in Leavenworth,” Jimmy said with a playful jab at his friend’s arm.
“Don’t listen to him, Ann. Jimmy exaggerates. But I ask you, if you had to choose between war and getting stoned, which would you prefer? Slog through jungle mud with a gun and chiggers, or go on a head trip that’s so intense and beautiful you feel about to burst? Think about it. That’s the choice they’re offering us.”
The crowd dazzled Ann. All kinds of people, all ages. Babies in strollers. Gray-haired couples. Bearded men. Men wearing ties. Children scampering. She saw placards from the AFL-CIO and the GIs Against the War. Ann half expected to spot Yvor Winters in his new career as war protestor.
The throng rambled along Market Street. Among these impassioned people, Ann felt secure with Jimmy.
“Hang on,” he said.
“Where’s your friend?”
“Don’t worry about Chip. He has to check out the scene.”
For a time, the flood of protestors carried them uphill. The crowd was moving counter to the stern steps of a military formation. The signs people were carrying told the story.
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
DROP ACID NOT BOMBS
Bitter labels floated in the air—napalm, Dow Chemical, Ho Chi Minh. But people were smiling and waving at the policemen they passed. Now and then shouts and roars turned into a full chorus.
“Historic day,” someone said.
Ann liked the energy, the righteousness. Some of the sounds and antics were undergraduate fraternity party style—whistles and yelps of fun—but mostly it was a fervent, directed passion, a deliberate march over the hills toward the Golden Gate, like a journey to heaven, if there was such a place, which she doubted. Ann was indifferent to the question of heaven. But she doubted the United States was the most corrupt country on earth, as the hitchhiker had claimed.
Hi ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is gonna win.
The zeal of the demonstration surprised her. She held on to Jimmy, feeling proud of their small part in a huge movement. Her chest pounded.
Hell no, we won’t go!
She chanted along with the crowd.
One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war.
The rhyme was satisfying. But she wouldn’t say fucking. Jimmy didn’t chant. He seemed to be more of an observer of the scene, not a participant, although he kept an affectionate hold on her hand, as if she might stray. He wore a faraway look, like a visionary who could see the big picture, how it fit into history. She thought he was wise. He was always reading philosophers. He seemed amused by her enthusiasm at the march. She herself was amused at her own behavior, not what a bookish person like her would expect to do. Back in Kentucky, people her age were having babies and working at soul-destroying jobs. But she was still a student, a Beatles fan, an idealist determined to stop the war. She had the Pill—and a boyfriend—and she was free.
As the marchers turned from Market Street toward the stadium, she thought of the cows on the farm coming home to be milked—eager but patient, plodding together with a single purpose, ready to burst, they were so full. She was a little girl with a dog, herding cows, sure that she was in control of her destiny.
ANN THOUGHT SHE had never seen so many people together in all her life. She and Jimmy couldn’t find seats and had to stand off to the side. They were too far away from the stage to hear the speeches clearly. The ebullient crowd jostled her, and now and then someone tromped on her feet. It was hard to fathom that she had known Jimmy such a short time. Everything had fallen into place. She hardly heard the speeches. The sound roared, the crowd chanted exuberantly, and she surrendered to the emotion. Judy Collins’s sweet, pure voice seemed to echo her own feelings, and then Big Brother and the Holding Company churned the crowd with raw urgency. During Dick Gregory’s speech, Ann was waiting in a long line at the restroom, and she could not distinguish his words.
Jimmy was supposed to be waiting by the bottom of the bleachers, but when she emerged from the restroom she didn’t see him anywhere. A band she didn’t know was playing. After she had waited a minute, checking her watch, she began to wonder. She didn’t want to leave the spot. Maybe she had misunderstood. As she turned, Jimmy stepped out from behind the column. He was laughing.
She gasped. “Were you hiding from me?”
“I was watching you.” He grinned.
“Why?”
“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to abandon you.”
They left before the program was over. Jimmy wanted to beat the traffic. They were a long way from the car, but Jimmy knew some shortcuts through less crowded side streets.
“Shouldn’t we find Chip?” She had been scanning the crowd for him.
“Don’t worry. He’ll find a way back.”
Ann was glad when they arrived at the blue Mustang—familiar now, like a cozy home. Jimmy reached across her and found some almonds he had stashed in the glove compartment.
“I wonder if anything will come of this day,” he said, in an almost bitter tone, as he tore open the package. He poured almonds into her hand.
“Don’t you think it will?” Ann had been impressed by the optimism of the demonstrators but sobered by the words on the placards and the fury of some of the speakers.
“I don’t know. It’s awfully hard to stop a war machine.”
Ann pictured a John Deere combine, a behemoth harvester sucking up a wheat crop.